Eulogy Of Dying River Novels & Stories

Jordan Ford lost a bet, and I was forced to remove my makeup in front of everyone. The whole crowd goaded me on while his friends laughed especially loudly. “Don’t be a buzzkill. Eira already did it. “Come on, Clara! You’re not chickening out, are you?” Three years prior, I had saved Jordan from a car accident. Glass shards cut my face and left a scar that could barely be concealed with makeup. “Go on, remove it.” Through the smoke, his gaze met mine with nothing but casual indifference. I dragged a makeup-removing wipe across my face, again and again, revealing the ugly scar. “It’s just makeup. Quit being so dramatic. “You killed my mother back then. That scar is just a light price

“You let her put synthetic shifter serum into her blood for cash?” “We thought it was just a temporary trial,” Harlan whispered, tears finally slipping down his wrinkled cheeks. “The money saved our house, but six months later, she started getting sick. The fevers, the memory gaps, the strange light in her eyes during full moons… the pack doctors told me it was a rare neurological illness, but it wasn’t. It was a slow, brutal deterioration caused by the serum interacting with her baseline human DNA.” “And her death?” I pressed, stepping closer to his chair. “You told me she died of pneumonia when I was four.”

I think about the first life and the ballroom floor and dying with my hands pressed against a cold marble surface asking for one more day. I got more than one day. I got this. "Yes," I say. Riven looks at me. The dawn arrives.

Whatever that was. The administrator turned to me. "Axel Rivers. Ninety-nine years of survival. You know how this ends. You know the administrators always win. Why are you fighting a battle you can't win?" "Because for ninety-nine years, I had nothing to fight for," I said. "Now I do. And I'd rather die fighting for something than survive for nothing." "Romantic. Foolish. But romantic." Then its attention shifted to Bree, and I saw her go rigid.

Only a breath, only for now. The river whispered one final word: Remember. Then stilled, its surface as calm as death. At dawn, the valley’s edges stirred with uneasy portent. Farmers watched their reflection ripple in puddles, only to see eyes blink where none should have been. Witches peered into scrying bowls and saw not futures, but drowned souls peering back. In Sirelia’s war camp, a priest of the old rites fell to his knees in terror, screaming: “The river speaks her name!”

Rhunar muttered, reaching into his white suit jacket for his phone. .... Across the river, Dale knelt by the water, his hands trembling as he scattered Rikky’s ashes into the current. The gray particles drifted, carried by the wind and water like a final goodbye. His fingers lingered in the stream for a moment before he stood. “Goodbye, son.” Ryan stood a respectful distance back, arms folded. As Dale turned to walk away, a sudden blast of force knocked Ryan to the ground. He grunted, rolling over, dazed.

It pains me so deeply knowing that he’s not just saying goodbye to Yan, but also to a huge part of what shaped him into the man he is today. The river near the barn is calm and serene, offering a peaceful landscape for Yan’s final resting place. I can see the reflection of the trees on the water, and it’s as if nature is mourning alongside us. The sun is setting, casting a golden glow over the water, and it feels like a fitting tribute to Yan’s life.

Ryan There’s a river that runs through the Deadlands. The same river that splits Eastonia in two. On the other side, mountains hug the horizon, blurring the view of Tarsian beyond. In the Deadlands, the river is… wide, but still. A large, lumbering stretch of clear water that weaves through the plains. Here, in the Roguelands, in what used to be a city called Twin Rivers, now nothing but a husk of what it was twenty or so years ago when Ryatt and Ella were young, that same river is angry and narrow, full of rapids and rock.

Soon the spurts subsided and the five braced themselves to turn, each unaware of who had dealt the deathblow, and hoping against hope that it had not been them. Eddie gave a final kick. His arm dangled over the side of the rubber-covered hospital mattress. He was still now, as graceful in death as Geraldine hoped he had managed to be in life. Though of that, she wasn’t the judge and jury. Yes, the world may be ending, but she still believed in some things. The walls around the end of the bed, like the floor beneath those soon to squeak wheels, were adorned with ruby pinwheels of blood. It was an ugly, yet beautiful sight. Exquisite and pure.

Now that River isn’t here to protect me, I need to do it for myself. If I were able to protect myself before, then maybe… This shouldn’t have happened. Rows of white stones surrounded us, and now, River’s name was included on it. It felt unreal. Until now, my mind was still in denial. “Poor guy. He’s still so young, yet he died because of someone obsessed with the Princess.” “I heard that even his parents weren’t here because they couldn’t deal with the pain. I wonder how hard it must have been for them to lose their heir.”